01590 462005 | WhatsApp

Get in touch...

01590 462005 WhatsApp

Keep it social...

Renaturing Gardens for more Buzz

Rewilding gardens in holiday homes to care for pollinating insects and bees

Studies have shown that UK National Parks are no more diverse than the regions around them. We can’t rely on National Park management to save species. We have to do it ourselves on private land. Everyone can make a difference. Treating the gardens of our homes like conservation spaces, that are actively managed to help nature thrive is important. Our partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust focuses on supporting wild bee and pollinators which are seriously in decline.

We have 6 owners who are leading the way on this innovative project so far. Join in. 

Our vision

What if we could reverse pollinator decline in our gardens?
What if our children were taught to love and encourage insects, not fear them?
What if our gardens were mini nature reserves and biodiversity hot-spots?

In summary

NFE owners look after over 230 acres of private gardens across the New Forest area. Private land suits wildlife conservation because you have greater control over how the land is used and the public can’t disrupt the work that you do.

As land owners, we can choose to protect, conserve and improve our gardens and land.
You can make a difference by making small but profound changes. 

Simple planting changes can help. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Guests will enjoy seeing what you’re doing and may even water for you in summer! 

We are working with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to audit gardens and improve them year on year.

Contact us to ask for a visit from Fiona, who will help you understand what you’ve got already for pollinators and how your garden could be improved.

This project aims to...

Improve life for bees & pollinators

Insecticides are widely used on arable land in the NF - also damaging insects. Private gardens are safe spaces to help nature thrive. Quite simply, it's the right thing to do.

Work with Bumblebee Conservation Trust

The BCT are the UK's leading pollinator charity. Gill Perkins, CEO, lives in Lymington and has helped us create this project.

Support owners + map garden improvement

We can measure and guide owners to improve gardens A BCT volunteer will visit and help you

Enjoy thriving gardens

Guests pay for inside and outside spaces, most come for a break in nature. Having biodiverse, considered gardens is important for happy stays. Doing this helps you get onto our Eco-Homes collection.

About pollinators in general – the basics.

Most bees are pollinators. They eat pollen and nectar from flowers. When the pollen sticks to their bodies, it gets transferred between the flowers they visit. This fertilises the plants in the process, allowing them to reproduce, and grow fruits and seeds. This process is called pollination.

Insects, like bees, that transfer pollen between plants are known as pollinators. There are at least 1500 species of insect pollinators in the UK. The honeybee normally lives in hives managed by beekeepers. Others, like many species of bumblebees, solitary bees, moths, butterflies and hoverflies, live in the wild.

Some crops, like raspberries, apples and pears, particularly need insect pollination to produce good yields of high-quality fruit. If pollinator populations decline, it is extremely unlikely we will run out of food. But if there were far fewer of them, farmers would find it more difficult and expensive to produce some crops at the scale they do today.

Bees are essential for biodiversity and our wider environment. They maintain the diversity of wild flowers and support healthy ecosystems, particularly by helping plants to produce fruits and seeds which birds and other animals rely on. They are a vital part of our natural world, we can’t be healthy without them because we must have them in our food systems.

As a guide, insect pollinators are responsible for 75% of crop species, 35% of global crop production, and up to 88% of flowering plant species. Read more here in this article on Nature.com 2019 

Honey bees are managed by a bee keeper. Farms often hire them in for pollination. They are also at risk, but less so.

Pollinators under pressure in our area

Studies have shown that UK National Parks are no more diverse than the regions around them.

Even worse, that,the World Conservation Union (IUCN) places the UK’s national parks in category V (the second lowest out of six) and defines them as ‘a protected area managed mainly for landscape/seascape protection and recreation’. To help put that in context, the IUCN considers its Category II rating – Yellowstone in the US, as being the international standard for national parks.

This tells us we can’t rely on National Parks to save species. We have to do it ourselves. Read more here  about the Glover Report in Geographical Magazine March 2020.

If pollinator numbers suffer further, our countryside will be a less beautiful place.

Don’t forget that in only 12 months, scientists came up with a vaccine for Covid, and in 1985 it took 2 years for the world to sign the Montreal Protocol to protect the Ozone layer and stop using CFC’s.

Bumblebees and solitary Bees are wild and are reducing in number. Some are extinct already. Some populations are recovering where people have taken action. Most damage to the Bumblebees is from habitat loss and pesticide/insecticide use – of which is still being used in the NF on farms. The spray ‘drifts’ in the air and wind and damages many other insects too. You’ll know when tractors are spraying – it can really stink.

Step 1 - Understand where you're at now - Book an garden visit

Visits need to be done from late March to end October – when the garden is fully functional and it’s easy to see what you’ve already got.

It will take about 45 mins to 1hr 30 – depending on how large the garden is, how much time you want to spend learning.

The cost is £100 per audit – NFE will pay £30 – it’s done annually or possibly every other year.

Step 2 - Enjoy your educational visit from a BCT volunteer

Your visit will involve your meeting a BCT volunteer, and you’ll walk around as much of the garden as possible in the timeframe. You might well spend quite a bit of time on your hands and knees investigating what’s there.

The visit will record what you have already in the garden like an audit. The forms will give you a baseline for where you are and help you plan for improvements:

They’ll:
– tell you what really works already and what could be improved
– discuss lawn mowing and areas to leave shape to help pollinators
– encourage you to be a strategically messy gardener – wild and undisturbed places are critical for nature
– discuss how you could improve the garden for pollinators
– what sort of style gardening works for you with the confines of gardening with guest changeover patterns
– discuss budgets, savings, and timeframes for any work you might do

The time is meant to be practical, supportive, education and helpful.

Step 3 - Get your score and audit and help list back

You’ll get your audit back which will have a score on it so you and we can measure improvement.

There will be a plant list to help you move forward so you are clear with what to do. It’s well laid out and simple to understand.

You can phone your auditor and ask them to talk you through it.

Then tell your guests – print off your audit and put it in the welcome pack for the guests to read. Add a nice note to explain it further if you want. Showing that you care for nature, will help them care too.

Step 4 - Work with your team to make improvements

Work with your gardening team to make any improvements that you want. 

If you want to do it yourself that’s great.

Or pass it to a gardener for them.

If you want more help, Fiona charges £150 for 4 hour max’ help to get you going in the right direction and support your team to ensure they buy the right plants and put them in the right place – the key to all successful gardening!

Most nature gardening is cheap because it means doing less. Nature likes messy areas, so leave some places to grow and go wild. A simple example is: ‘No Mow May’ – leaving lawns uncut for bees to use the flowers for nectar.  You could also leave piles of sticks for nature, long grassy areas through the year.

Planting and changing gardens can be expensive, but if you’re canny and get involved with your local community to share plants, seeds, ideas, knowledge, use local groups for help – it’s doable.

 

Step 5 - Share your work with your guests

Your guests will love that you’re taking conservation and protection seriously.

NFE really encourage kids to love bees – starting with our bee-focused Kids Pack.

Do leave leaflets and info for people on the bees, and here is a word doc that you can tailor, to put in your House Info pack, to show them what’s going on.

They are probably more likely to water the garden for you, and invest in your vision.

Do a watering list if you want to – many guests are happy to help on holiday – but they need pointing in the right direction.

Your free walk with Wild New Forest

For the really committed conservationists, we give our NFE owners a free educational walk with Wild New Forest.

Marcus and Russ started the Community Interest Company in 2020 during lockdown. They are fully supported by the National Park to educate people about the forest and coastal areas, nature that lives or migrates here, and the challenges these species have. The chaps are very friendly, extremely knowledgable and well informed.

Their walks happen a few times of the week; we love the sea-wall walk for learning about our rare and at risk migrating birds, or try the Brockenhurst walks for learning about the forest and Commoning, at risk bird species.

We’ve done both with the full team and can highly recommend them.

A note from Gill Perkins, CEO of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Gill Perkins, CEO of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, and a truly inspiring and vibrant lady, is always keen to share her passion. When we did the first audits, she really takes time to enthuse and teach. We really love working with Gill and her team. This is some information she asked me to share with you.

“Insects are beautiful, inventive and economically invaluable. They pollinate plants, feed birds, defend crops and make our gardens colourful. We can all give worms spiders, beetles, ladybirds, butterflies and bumblebees the space they need to flourish with simple actions – grow more flowers.

If you grow flowers with different shaped flowers you will attract different species of bees – some bumblebees with short tongues forage on open, simple flowers such as apple blossom while bumblebees with long tongues can forage on deeper tube-shaped flowers such as foxgloves.

You can sow annual and perennial plants on the windowsill in early spring, then plant them out in early summer when they are large enough, and they’ll be flowering in a few months. With dozens of seeds in each pack you can easily grow more than enough plants for less than the cost of a single large plant from a garden centre.

‘Grow-your-own’ can provide delicious and nutritious food, and the flowers that develop into fruits and vegetables can provide important forage for bumblebees and other pollinators. Some plants, for example beans and blackcurrants are nearly always bee-pollinated, and can easily be grown in pots, grow bags or directly in the ground in amongst other flowering plants

Many ‘pest’ control treatments are extremely harmful to beneficial insects like bees. Even if you only spray the leaves, the nectar and pollen can become laced with pesticides which harm the insects which visit the flowers. Our best advice is to look into natural control methods. You can encourage beneficial predatory insects like ladybirds and lacewings into the garden, that will eat aphids and other garden pests.

I really hope you enjoy the garden here and can learn more from our auditing. Every day is a school day!”

 

 

For more info' about renaturing your garden

Firstly – do become a member of the BCT – visit their website here. www.bumblebeeconservation.org

If you own between 1 and 50 acres, this book is for you. Rewilding – The Manual, written by Jonathan Thomson, who also runs day courses in Wiltshire. The book is practical, short, easy to read and will give you plenty of ideas. “This not a nature book, rather it is a practical ‘how to’ manual for people who own 1 – 50 acres and want to increase biodiversity.”
www.underhillwoodnaturereserve.com

Bee the Change by the BCT – you’ll find lots of simple easy cost free actions to increase biodiversity. Here.

Gill Perkins, CEO of the BCT, recommends,  Jean Vernon’s book Attracting Garden Pollinators. Here

B Corp        Our To-do List

👋 Chat with us!